The new plan would move fewer students, less than 300, and could allow the current fourth- and seventh-graders to stay put for their last year in a building, as long as their parents provide transportation.

Some North Allegheny school board members say it’s time to consider asking tax-exempt nonprofits to chip in to help balance the district’s budget, especially because a preliminary spending plan for 2014-15 is showing a $7.3 million deficit.

Board Vice President Tara Fisher is proposing payment-in-lieu-of-tax programs, agreements under which nonprofits and other organizations contribute to government entities.

“We’ve seen it work with other school districts, when there are nonprofit organizations that are within their borders,” said Fisher, one of three members who joined the board this month.

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Some parents of North Allegheny students are taking issue with the school district’s proposals to redraw school boundaries to alleviate overcrowding at several elementary schools and a middle school.

“These scenarios just don’t make any sense to me,” Maggie Pople, president of the Parent Faculty Association at Marshall Elementary School, said after a Monday focus group meeting at the school, where district officials including Superintendent Raymond Gualtieri presented the plans.